An unmanned Antares rocket, contracted by the NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, has exploded right after taking off from the Wallops Flight Facility along the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket was supposed to get a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to orbit, that carried about 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the ISS. Unfortunately, the cargo was not delivered – the rocket exploded about six seconds after its launch, plummeting back to the surface and exploding on impact.
The rocket was set to lift off on Monday, but was postponed by a boat floating on the projected trajectory of the rocket. Tuesday had, in turn, the best possible conditions for liftoff – there were no technical concerns about it, and the conditions were 100% favorable. And them “Boom!”. The Antares rocket and the Cygnus spacecraft cost over $200 million, according to Orbital Sciences Corp. Advanced Programs Group general manager Frank Culbertson. Besides the obvious loss of equipment and cargo, the exploding rocket has damaged the launch pad, and has probably caused damage even beyond that. Fortunately, the accident only caused damage, but no lives were lost and no persons were injured during the incident.
SpaceX founder – and Orbital competitor with a similar contract – Elon Musk said he was sorry for Orbital’s loss, hoping they would recover soon. The billionaire seemingly expected things to turn out this way. In an interview published in Wired two years ago he called the Antares rocket “a punchline to a joke – using outdated rocket engines built by Russia in the 1960s, and “packed away in Siberia somewhere”. Musk’s company plans its fifth resupply mission to the International Space Station this December, delivering more supplies and a laser instrument to measure pollution, dust and other atmospheric variables. In the meantime the Russian Soyuz spacecraft will also make a supply run to the ISS soon, so don’t worry – there is no way the astronauts on board the station will go hungry.